THE ART OF BLUFFING: IT IS NOT DECEPTION, IT IS THE ART OF POWERFUL

BLUFFING ISN’T WRONG UNTIL YOU ARE NOT DOING IT OFTEN

“Sometimes when someone is pointing a gun at you, instead of bullets, it is filled with blanks”. This is a quote from Suits. This clearly talks about bluffing. Now, I know you might be thinking that this is not something honorable. But this is not like what you think.

Bluff is not just some outright lie. It is a very precise and thought-through statement to get your opponents off balance and make them make a move in haste, which will cost them a lot more than a dime.

You know I am not telling you to start using it often. If you make a reputation as a bluffer, your word loses all meaning. Believe me when I say that your word should be strong enough that even your competitors are sure that you wouldn’t turn on it.

This is a tactic. When you are in the corporate world, most of the people around you are trying to toss you around. And the reality is, everyone loves someone who is too light to be tossed around — an easy target. That is why you need to have many tricks up your sleeve. And bluffing is one hell of a trick.

If you think that you go around and make your way in the world without being flexible in your methods, you are more than wrong. You are disillusioned. I am not asking you to bend everything up and just have no ethical boundaries. But sometimes, to get yourself out of a situation where you know you didn’t end up entirely on your own fault, doing something flexible becomes necessary.

So don’t use it often, but know it because it is a tool for the dire need.

HOW TO BLUFF?

The art of bluffing is actually not a complex one. It is quite simple. It requires you to be confident on something which is sometimes not entirely and sometimes entirely not true.

So the first thing you need to master in order to be able to bluff is to become so confident no one can doubt you. If at any point you do something that tips it off, you are gone. If they know that you are bluffing, then whatever you trying to protect or achieve is gone. So master your body. Stop those unnecessary body language signs that smell of lie. Excessive sweat, dry throat, constant fidgeting, and many more. You need to cut them away. And that happens through practicing controlling them normally. Your body should give out the least about what you are feeling.

Now the other point is to know that you are lying and you need to make it sound real. To make it happen, exaggerate the thing. Make it bigger. Suppose that you want to mine out something out of a criminal. If he is stubborn, then bluff about his family. Make him believe you will do something to them if he doesn’t inform you, although you have nothing on his family.

When it is about money and you bluff to change the amounts, at least make it 3 times the previous one; otherwise, they know it is a bluff.

Whenever you need to bluff, just think if you can control the situation when the person on the other side gets the idea and lets out a check on you. That is when you need to hold tight.

Other than this, bluffing is all about trying and getting better. Just build confidence in it and you will master it.